Jongleur 2016

Eckart Hahn made "Jongleur," probably with oils, I'm guessing sometime in the twenty-first century. There’s a real, dedicated approach to mark-making in this piece. Everything is very precise, controlled. You can almost feel the artist carefully applying each layer of paint. It makes me think about how much of art is actually about the process. It's about the hours spent in the studio, the deliberate choices, the layering and adjusting. And when you look closely, you see that the paint is applied thinly, almost like glazing. It gives the painting a luminous quality. There's a beautiful contrast between the smoothness of the animals and the rougher texture of the ropes. Look at the way the light catches the lion’s fur, it's so detailed. It reminds me a little of early Gerhard Richter, but with more narrative. It's that same commitment to process, that same interest in exploring the possibilities of paint. Art's just a big conversation, right?